America's most original and controversial literary critic writes
trenchantly about forty-eight masterworks spanning the Western
tradition--from Don Quixote to Wuthering Heights to Invisible
Man--in his first book devoted exclusively to narrative fiction.
In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom--who for more
than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and
controversial literary critic--gives us his only book devoted entirely
to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable
scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers
meditations on forty-eight essential works spanning the Western canon,
from Don Quixote to Book of Numbers; from Wuthering Heights to
Absalom, Absalom!; from Les Misérables to Blood Meridian; from
Vanity Fair to Invisible Man. Here are trenchant appreciations of
fiction by, among many others, Austen, Balzac, Dickens, Tolstoy, James,
Conrad, Lawrence, Le Guin, and Sebald.
Whether you have already read these books, plan to, or simply care about
the importance and power of fiction, Harold Bloom is your unparalleled
guide to understanding literature with new intimacy.